Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Girls On The Bus’ On Max, About Four Women Journalists On The Presidential Campaign Trail

There’s a reason why good shows that revolve around politics are rare. If they don’t hit on exactly what’s so absurd about politics and how the government runs, ala Veep, or aren’t super-honorable about what the governmental officials being depicted are doing, ala The West Wing, the show just comes off as nichey and wonky. What ends up happening is that more salacious elements are heaped on to make things more interesting. Sometimes that works (Scandal), but most of the time, it doesn’t. A new Max series is one of those that are in the latter category.

THE GIRLS ON THE BUS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Balloons start dropping at a political convention. A woman looks then starts to briskly walk out when she spots two FBI agents who are after her.

The Gist: As Sadie McCarthy (Melissa Benoist), a reporter for the New York Sentinel, gets arrested outside the Republican National Convention. Her voice over says, “I didn’t do it, but as any political journalist can tell you, these days, the truth is whatever you want to believe. So here is my truth…”

We go back seven months, to the days before the Iowa caucuses. Sadie is looking to cover the presidential campaign of Caroline Bennett (Joanna Gleason), but her editor, Bruce Turner (Griffin Dunne), felt that she got too emotionally involved the last time she was on the trail three years prior, crying when the candidate she followed, Felicity Walker (Hettienne Park) lost.

Sadie argues that her journalistic hero, Hunter S. Thompson (P.J. Sosko), whose ghost she envisions whenever she needs inspiration, would get involved. Turner says that was 50 years ago and objectivity is more desired on the campaign trail. However, since Turner likes Sadie’s reporting so much, he tells her if she can land a print exclusive with Bennett, she can follow her on the trail.

At the hotel she meets Grace Gordon Greene (Carla Gugino), who has been following presidential campaigns for over 30 years, and is the only one on the press bus she has become friends with. Also arriving is Kimberlyn Kendrick (Christina Elmore), an up-and-coming reporter for the conservative-leaning cable news network, and Lola Rahaii (Natasha Behnam), who has a massively popular Instagram feed and is funding her journey on the campaign trail through influencer sponsorships.

They all have their own things they’re dealing with: Grace is being pulled off the trail by family obligations; Kimberlyn is planning a wedding and doesn’t think her network takes her seriously enough because she’s Black; Lola is crushing hard on a socialist candidate and has to fight the dirty looks from the more traditional journalists who think she’s not for real.

Sadie is driven to get that interview with Bennett, but things become more difficult when she finds out Bennett’s new press secretary is Malcolm (Brandon Scott), the guy she slept with on the trail three years ago then ghosted when things got serious at the end of the campaign. Of course he’s not going to give her that exclusive, but that doesn’t stop Sadie from calling every source she can think of to get an in.

Sadie finally manages to get in when she does a favor for Kimberlyn, who has the cable exclusive and finds herself stranded in rural Iowa with Lola, of all people. Lola pulled Kimberlyn out of a mob that was attacking her because of who she works for, and video of that incident is now causing a social media backlash. Sadie thinks she has the Sunday front page, until a story her friend Grace was working on ends up making her puff piece on Bennett irrelevant.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Girls On The Bus feels like a combination of The Morning Show, Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy and The Newsroom.

Our Take: Created by Julie Plec and Amy Chozick, The Girls On The Bus is inspired by Chozick’s book Chasing Hillary, the reporter’s personal chronicle of following Hillary Clinton on two presidential campaigns. Of course, the show’s title is a take on The Boys On The Bus, Timothy Crouse’s 1973 book about the journalists (including Hunter S. Thompson) who followed the 1972 presidential campaign; that much is made obvious when Sadie not only shows a well-read copy of the book but has the ghost of Thompson giving her pep talks.

There was potential for a good drama here about Sadie, who is pretty obviously the stand-in for Chozick, forging unlikely friendships with her competition and showing the difficulties women still have on the campaign trail, whether they’re reporters, candidates or staffers. Instead, Plec and Chozick decided to turn the show into a soapy series that’s less about politics or journalism than it is about who is sleeping with who or which reporter is stabbing which other reporter in the back.

Perhaps Chozick’s personal narrative, while fascinating for a nonfiction book, just didn’t sizzle enough for TV. So they just piled silliness on top of silliness until the show stops looking like anything real and feels like, as we mentioned, Grey’s Anatomy on the campaign trail.

That’s why we have Sadie’s narration and her fascination with early-’70s gonzo journalism. That’s why we can’t just hear her talk about Thompson, but we have to see him, too. That’s why we have to see Lola packing her vibrator on suggestion from one of her followers during a live feed. It’s why Sadie has to encounter someone she slept with within the first ten minutes of the first episode, who just happens to be the person who is in the way of what she wants. And of course there’s a ton of sexual tension flying between the two of them, despite their previous history.

That’s not to say that Benoist isn’t charming as hell as Sadie. Sure, she played a reporter on Supergirl, but this is an entirely different animal, and she’s believable as a hard-charging journalist who gets a bit too attached to the candidates she follows. And that’s not to say that Gugino is her usual tough-as-nails self as Grace. And that’s also not to say that Elmore and Benham don’t show promise as Kimberlyn and Lola, respectively. We just wish they were in a vehicle that was a skosh more serious than the first episode showed.

Sex and Skin: A flashback to Sadie sleeping with Malcolm, which shows a lot of under-the-covers bouncing.

Parting Shot: Back to the RNC; we see the four women, now good friends, holding hands. Then we see Sadie being taken away by the FBI.

Sleeper Star: Scott Foley plays a Democratic candidate whose stump speech impresses Sadie; it might be a small role, but we enjoy Scott Foley in whatever he does. Mark Consuelos plays another candidate that we also hope to see more of.

Most Pilot-y Line: Malcolm tells Sadie he and Bennett have “5,780 minutes” until the caucuses, then gives the aside “I went to Yale,” then tells her she just wasted 2 of them. That is some tortured dialogue right there.

Our Call: SKIP IT. The Girls On The Bus is a soapy show that feels like it could take place in any setting; it just happens to take place on the presidential campaign trail. And that feels like a missed opportunity.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.